State: More money needed to save endangered wildlife

Funds to help save endangered wildlife not coming in as fluid

Jan. 31, 2014

Kathy Clark (right), zoologist with the state Division of Fish and Wildlife, carries a rehabilitated peregrine falcon to the release site at the Twin Lights park on Tuesday. / Photos by Bob Bielk/Staff Photographer

Kathy Clark, zoologist with the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, releases a rehabilitated peregrine falcon at the Twin Lights State Park. It was rescued after being injured during a migration flight - Tuesday, January 28, 2014-Highlands, NJ. Staff photographer/Bob Bielk/Asbury Park Press

ABOUT PEREGRINE FALCONS

• From being practically extinct in New Jersey a generation ago, peregrine falcons now keep 26 nesting sites in New Jersey and produced 57 offspring last year. • Peregrines favor high nest locations, such as the Palisdades, Outerbridge Crossing over the Arthur Kill, and the former Atlantic Club Hotel in Atlantic City. • With population growing, there are reports of peregrines around the Route 35 bridge over the Shark River and the Route 1 bridge in New Brunswick.

Kathy Clark, zoologist with the state Division of Fish and Wildlife, releases a rehabilitated peregrine falcon.

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HIGHLANDS — Released to the cold, crystal air over the Twin Lights park, the young peregrine falcon wheeled over the lighthouse before coming to rest atop one of its towers.

“He hasn’t flown in about two months, so he’s got to get his bearings. The last time he flew was in Montclair,” biologist Kathy Clark said, smiling up at her former charge as he surveyed the seascape around Sandy Hook.

The peregrine falcon released Tuesday had been found in Montclair with a dislocated shoulder. He was rehabilitated by the Raptor Trust, one of the nonprofit groups that have become increasingly important partners to the endangered species program.

Workers with the state Department of Environmental Protection staged the release Tuesday to celebrate the recovery of peregrines and other once-threatened raptors — and ask New Jerseyans for more help to support the Endangered and Non-Game Species Program.

Watch the video above to see the release.

It’s been “a remarkable recovery our birds of prey have made over the years,” said Larry Hajna, a DEP spokesman. “When Kathy started with the program, we were down to one active bald eagle nest in Cumberland County. Now there are close to 150.”

The 2013 winter survey counted almost 300 bald eagles in New Jersey. This winter, Shore residents are reporting them in unlikely places such as suburban Monmouth County and the Holiday City at Berkeley retirement community in Ocean County.

But in the meantime, something else has become endangered — money for the program, which is funded by New Jersey taxpayers’ voluntary contributions, by checking off part of their state income tax refunds, and by the sale of $50 wildlife license plates.

Check-off donations peaked at close to $500,000 in 1991 but have been on the decline since, bringing in less than $170,000 during the 2012 tax year, said Paulette Nelson, an assistant director of the state Division of Fish and Wildlife. The Conserve Wildlife license plate was one of the first used as a voluntary funding mechanism. But in the last 20 years, the custom plates-for-a-cause have proliferated and attracted donors.